The martial arts (e.g. karate, kendo or martial-style arts), including martial-style arts such as kick boxing, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, fencing and other fighting arts, have a long tradition in many cultures. Martial arts are perhaps popularly recognised as originating from Asia but also have a long history in many other cultures and extend into modem culture today.
The martial arts are systems of codified practices and traditions of training for combat and may involve light- to medium-contact or full-contact sparring. Some forms of martial arts include the use of specialised weaponry (e.g. the shinai [Japanese sword] in kendo). In each case, a scoring system may be used that involves allocating points for striking identified “target” areas on the opponent's body with a specified part of the attacker's body (e.g. hand, foot, elbow or knee) or with a specified part of a weapon. For example, In kendo a point in competition is only awarded when the attack is made to a target area on the opponent's body and when the attack is made with the spirit, shinai and body as one. The shinai must strike the target soundly, including making contact with the top third of the shinai, with the direction of movement of the shinai being technically correct.
Currently the assessment of martial art combat technique is made visually by judges or through the incapacitation of an opponent. A key constraint in terms of visual judgement is the difficulty of observing attacks with the naked eye—for example, owing to the speed of the attack it may be difficult to accurately assess the location and force of the impact from an attack, or whether any real impact and damage was made (other than by reliance on physical cues such as a knockout or other incapacitating injury to a competitor). Human error and bias in refereeing are disadvantages with visual scoring systems. Another disadvantage is that close observation of attacks by a judge or referee carries the risk of serious injury or death, particularly when weaponry is involved.
The real risk of injury to competitors, particularly when weaponry is involved, has caused a decline in popularity of many martial arts in which full-contact combat or sparring is considered too dangerous (and/or unethical). This has led to full contact weapons-based competitions being restricted or prohibited in a number of countries. Thus some martial art systems are dying out through the lack of opportunity to compete in those martial arts safely.
Western fencing is an example of a martial-style art involving the use of weaponry (such as foils, epées, sabres—three kinds of swords used in Olympic fencing). Scoring involves landing a “hit” in a target area on an opponent. Ways used to overcome the difficulties of the visual scoring system used in fencing have included using ink on swords so that when an opponent's jacket is hit, it would stain and the number of “hits” could be counted. This method had the disadvantage that competitors could cheat by putting vinegar on their jackets so the ink would not show, thereby disguising the number of times a competitor had been hit.
To overcome the above problem, electronic scoring systems have been introduced. In fencing, for example, this involves an electrically conductive jacket (lamé) and mask defining the target (scoring) area and a push-button on the tip of the blade (or other form of pressure-sensitive tip). The electric weapon (foil, epée or sabre) in conjunction with the lamé form a single electric circuit. A valid “hit” by the electric weapon onto the lame or mask closes the circuit and causes a light to turn on. The jacket and mask are connected electronically to a scoring machine so “hits” can be registered electronically when the tip of the blade makes contact with the lamé or mask. A hit is registered only when the push button is hit by a force of the specified minimum magnitude and remains fully depressed for the specified duration.
In fencing with foils and epées only hits made by the tip of the blade count. In fencing with sabres, any contact between any part of the blade and any part of the target counts. Alternative scoring systems involve a normally closed electrical circuit with a break in the circuit opening the circuit and illuminating a light.
The limitation of this type of electronic scoring system is that it only measures when contact has been made, it does not determine the location on the body of the strike or the strength of the striking force. This limits its usefulness in relation to other forms of martial arts in which electronically scoring the location of the hit and the force of the strike would be useful and also to weaponry-based martial arts where it might be preferable in some circumstances to measure the potential “damage” inflicted on an opponent rather than only recording that contact has been made.
Other limitations of electronic scoring systems such as used in fencing include:                a. the “scoring circuit” (formed by the jacket, mask and electric weapon) is specific to the particular martial art. For example, in foil fencing, the target area (and hence lamé) is restricted to the torso, while in epée fencing the target area includes the entire body, and in sabre fencing the target area is the “saddle line”—from one side of the hip to the other and up, including the head but not the hands. The “scoring circuit” is limited to the target area relevant to one art and not another, and hence is unable to register hits outside the target area of one art but within the target area of another art.        b. the weapon must strike the opponent before a score is registered—therefore, the risk of injury to the opponent is real, thereby limiting its usefulness in a wide range of weaponry-based martial arts where the risk of injury caused by a striking weapon is too great.        c. the ability to score is limited to contact by an electric weapon—therefore, there is limited use in martial arts where scoring involves striking by a body part (e.g. fist, elbow, foot) or non-electric (unmodified, traditional) weaponry.        
Yet another disadvantage of the system used in fencing is that the pressure sensor is on the weapon itself. Forms of martial art weaponry are varied and used in a variety of ways—it is of limited use to have a weapon-based sensor since scoring includes measures beyond whether a weapon makes contact with an opponent. For example, in martial arts weapons based fighting, the techniques used are not solely with the weapon. Fists, knees, elbows, feet, shins, shoulders, forehead, fingers etc are also used. Therefore electrifying the weapon or placing sensors over the weapon is not an effective means of scoring a combat technique. Further, a weapon can be used in a variety of ways and so sensors would be required to cover all of the striking areas of the weapon. Exemplary martial art weaponry includes Guandao, Chúi, La canne, Plong, Baton francais, Shareeravadi/bamboo pole, Naboot, Hanbo, Jō, Tambo, Monk's spade, Chicken sickles, Sai, Butterfly sword, Vettukathi (sword), Krabi/crabbie, Pariser/sharp tip, Epee/edgeless, Foil/blunt tip, Taijijian, Hook sword, Muai Cad Chuke (Cord wrap), Suntetsu, Vajra Mushti, Bagh nakh/tiger claws, Shuko/Bear claws, Grip knife, Karambit, Karambit/dbl bladed, Deer horn knives, Mai sokki/(tonfa look), Kurunthadi, Tonfa, Lathi, Jitte/jute/wood sword, Tanjo, Otta, Kanabo/studded bat, Taiaha, Urumi/Chuttuval/wire whip, Chain whip/connected rods, Rope dart, Meteor hammer, Manriki-gusari, Surujin, Chang xiao ban/grain flail, Samjiegun/3 piece staff, san set sukon 3-PC staff, Kusari-fundo, Tessen/fighting fan, Emeici/Emei daggers, Siangham/fighting arrow, Throwing knife, Kunai/T-dart etcetera.
Many martial arts weapons are used in conjunction with very specific forms of armour such as Kali/Escrima Armour made from steel visor and padded neck, shoulder and chest tunic, or Myunjebaegab, a bullet proof armour made of 13 layers of cotton. Armour sets such as Bogu is used in the discipline of kendo, consisting of pants and wire mask, which is quite different to other forms of martial art armoury. Likewise, Dō-maru is a Japanese wrap around style suit which is particularly defined by the absence of a solid breastplate or sleeves. Dō-maru armour is wrapped around the body rather than being put on in sections. There are thousands of forms of martial arts covering most regions of the world. Therefore, there is the need for force sensing and force locating means to be applied to an armour that can be used in a variety of martial arts.
In Taekwondo, a chest plate incorporating a force platform has been used. The chest plate offers rudimentary protection to the wearer, since it is made from padded material such as cardboard or leather and therefore would not provide sufficient protection against hard weaponry. The force platform suffers the further disadvantage that it only records whether contact has been made, not the location or magnitude of the contact force.
Other systems have been proposed to measure the impact of a weapon as it strikes. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,278,290 requires the target to be of a solid durable substance such as steel or titanium. A layer of elasto-luminescent material composed of zinc sulfide and manganese are embedded over this durable layer. The elasto-luminescent material is designed to emit light or exhibit luminescence when elastically strained, for example when a projectile strikes the material.
Photosensitive sensors are deployed at strategic locations to allow observation and recording of the target before, during, and after impact by a projectile. These images capture the target's luminescence at impact and the projectile's impact location. The images are then transmitted to a traditional image processing system that can isolate the impact location and correlate the light wave, length and intensity with a known kinetic energy value that was obtained through initial calibration of the system.
The limitations of such a system include:                1. in order to record a hit, a solid and durable impact plate such as a steel or titanium is required in the target area;        2. analysis of the luminescence data is not dynamic enough for analysis during a martial art challenge;        3. martial art competitions take place at close range where strikes can be occluded from view and the duration of luminescence on impact is transient, and therefore insufficient to overcome the problem of scoring with the naked eye;        4. repetitive striking at the same position with the same force may not produce a reproducible result on a elasto-luminescent surface; and        5. martial art armour comes in a variety of forms and it often is composed of a material that is traditional such as wood, cloth, tin, steel of particular shapes and styles. Therefore it is a limitation to have the elasto-luminescent composite material and adhere it to the underlying material.        
U.S. Pat. No. 4,761,005 discloses a means for using a transducer to measure an impact by a piezoelectric signal. Specifically this patent relates to the field of evaluating combative performance and its scoring in martial arts. However, the device described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,761,005 is limited to being placed on top of or sandwiched within, a deformable material. Therefore, it is of limited use in impact-protective materials.
Each of the patents mentioned herein is expressly incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
There is a need for an electronic scoring system for use in the martial arts that can be used across a number of martial arts, that can measure the location on the body (e.g. rib cage, jaw, throat) and magnitude of force applied (e.g. made by a weapon, a body part, or a fall), and that can double as protective armour (particularly in weapon-based martial arts) by absorbing or dissipating the force, thus providing a means for electronic scoring in martial arts without requiring the opponent to receive a damaging strike that inflicts pain, injury or worse.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an electronic scoring system for use in a variety of martial arts (including traditional styles of martial arts, mixed martial arts or the fighting arts generally) that allows an objective determination of the force, location and effectiveness of a force applied during competition, without the need for electric weaponry.